The improver of natural knowledge absolutely refuses to acknowledge authority, as such. For him, skepticism is the highest of duties; blind faith the one unpardonable sin. Thomas Huxley

Monday, February 01, 2016

NZika virus

A new variation of a very old virus has hit Auckland. It is being dubbed the NZika. It manifests by a curious shrinking, or indeed complete atrophy, of the financial brain, but seems confined only to property owners, real estate agents, and the assorted other parasites which inhabit the property ecosystem.
It results in frenzied bidding at property auctions, seemingly without regard to income, yield or cash-flow considerations - in effect, an instant lowering of financial inhibitions. The virus has rapidly accelerated through the property-owning class in Auckland, but as the transmission mechanisms (still apparently unknown) mature, it seems to be gaining a foothold in adjacent areas, thus giving rise to speculation that it is in fact spread by intimate financial transactions.
The Reserve Bank of New Zealand has made several attempts at controlling the spread of NZika.

It has tried an inoculation campaign, by temporarily raising interest rates so as to inject some financial reality into the afflicted subjects. However, before the results could be ascertained, it was forced to drop rates yet again on the advice of the Combined US-China Plunge Protection Team, leaving the results indeterminate.

It has tried a Financial Prophylactic Device, being an IRD-registered and surgically inserted Cap on certain parts of the Financial property Anatomy. Early results were promising, but as with many medical and social experiments, the potential for unintended consequences is large and there are too many uncontrolled variables (not to say, Financial body parts) to be able to say with certainty that NZika has been contained, let alone diminished.

It has been confounded by the fact that NZika seems also to have an intimate link with the land-use, zoning, consenting and other policies of local authorities. These institutions are staffed by people with zero financial brain capacity as a condition of employment, and thus are completely immune to the financial effects of whatever policy fad they embrace, and indeed, to NZika itself.

Having regard to the foregoing, financial medical researchers suggest that local authorities and NZika form a symbiosis - a mutually beneficial relationship between two otherwise completely unrelated species.

Under these circumstances, the Reserve Bank is, apparently, considering compulsory genetic modification to local authority staffers, to confer a heightened (rather than an absent) quotient of financial intelligence.
However, and at this writing fatally, the Die Grünen Collective have barred the necessary preliminary research. They aver that local authority planning staff, like the fabled Stockton Snails, are a rare and endangered species, and that the Precautionary Principle should Prevail. Preservation of said planners, no matter, it seems, how disastrous for the millions outside the Property Ecosystem, trumps any possibility of combating NZika.
Truly, some Ecosystems are more Equal than Others....